Creating a Day-long Culinary Tour in Ontario

Objective:

To research three food producers and/or beverage manufacturers in rural Ontario - located within 150km (a two-hour drive) of either Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor or London - and create day-long Culinary Tour, presenting your findings in a tour brochure.

Method:

As a future Culinary Tour Planner, you will need to:

• Research a rural area (within 150km from a major Ontario city) renowned for its food and beverage, that would interest Culinary Tourists and create day-long tour
• Describe the specific target market for the tour and why they were selected
• Prepare detailed itinerary that starts and ends at a fixed location in a city
• Highlight three different authentic businesses of interest to food tourists such as food producers/manufacturers (e.g. farms, fruit orchards, fisheries, etc.) and/or drink producers/manufacturers (e.g. breweries, wineries, and distilleries) as stops on the tour
• Do NOTinclude restaurants / bars / pubs or retailers / farmers markets / grocery storesas any of the three stops. Explain why they were chosen, what they offer, and why and what food tourists will appreciate about them (e.g., authenticity, local prominence, brand, etc.)
• You will need to explore the various factors that will make a lasting positive impact on your guests.
• This assignment has both descriptive and marketing implications, including a description of the specific customer targeted for this tour.
• This assignment involves researching and referencing information based on the topics learned in class.

Tour Brochure Contents:

1. Map out the trip, starting & ending in the same city:
   • Where are your three stops located? (Hint! include a print-out of a map!)
   • Create Google Map showing the locations of the three places you intend to visit and indicate the distances and travel times between each stop (i.e., how far away they are from each other and from the starting/ending point)
2. Travel Itinerary: Create breakdown of the day's events in a chart format
   • When and where is pick-up and drop-off times & places?
   • Give the full addresses, opening times, contact info, etc. for each stop
   • Include travel times between each stop and the total time taken
   • Explain higlights of the food and beverage experiences at each of the 3 places
3. Food & Beverage Experiences: Describe the foods and/or beverages at each of the three stops in the day-long tour and explain what makes each food item or beverage a must see authentic local experience as well as how they are connected to each other and the region's brand!
4. Describe the specific target market for the tour and why they were selected
5. Explore the various factors that will make a lasting positive impact on your guests

Guidelines:

1. A separate "Bibliography" is needed before your assignment will be accepted for graded.
2. There must be a minimum of 5 separate reference resources.
3. Include all sources of research information you used to create the brochure in a Bibliography page; for example: identify your sources of pictures, maps, brochures, web pages, charts, etc.